I've been working the internet for nine years, and I've been restricted accordingly by my parents with the help of America Online. I was never exposed to any 'suggestive' sites when I was younger. Additionally, with my computer settings, I was blocked from downloading anything, especially music-sharing programs. I could not go to the library and look up rated-X sites, because they were restricted there too. I could not do it at school, because the web pages we visited were logged and monitored. In reality, there was no way, even if I wanted to, look up 'detrimental' subjects.

This is another example of how it is more feasible to monitor things on a smaller, nongovernmental level. Imagine if I was still censored from viewing things now: I couldn't even have a Livejournal! Now that I'm older, and have my own values, I feel I should have a right to see things myself, at least to know to stay away from them. Because, like it or not, people will express themselves in their own ways and the profanity will seep out from under the cracks. It's better that I view it now and learn to avoid it, rather than be drawn to it so much like a forbidden treasure.

But you also bring up an interesting point: can the World Wide Web even be censored? This means as a whole: a mature adult with 'full access' would still be restricted to view boring family-safe, nonobjectionable vanilla-white content. My hypothesis is an emphatic 'no.' The WWW is an international, sweeping entity, (with millions if not billions of users) and any boundaries put on it would be swiftly broken. Not to mention the issue that it would still be largely unfair to confine all users to a set of binding protocol like that.

Lisa//Slytherin